The healthcare sector is the best performer on the S&P 500 index, up 13 percent in the third quarter. The sector’s rally in the third quarter can be tied to a wide range of companies, such as Pfizer, Humana, UnitedHealth Group and Abiomed, which saw shares rise at least 20 percent in 2018.
One of the main reasons for healthcare’s surge in the third quarter is hedge funds and money managers betting on healthcare stocks as a safety move, according to WSJ.
The heightened interest in healthcare stocks coincides with strong profits in the industry, which are expected to grow as the population ages.
Big tech stocks, including Amazon, Alphabet and Apple, fell more than 3 percent in September. Analysts attributed the downturn to investors’ concerns about new tech and data regulations that may emerge after Facebook’s widely publicized data breach.
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Fitch: Nonprofit hospital balance sheet metrics improve, operating margins don’t
